When The World Has Much More Sense
by TheDrawer
Summary: In which Team Seven is actually competent. If Naruto isn't some annoying dead last, Sakura isn't a devoted fangirl, and Sasuke is just not that into vengeance. And they're friends, shockingly. Friendship/Humor fic.
1. The Start

Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns it (even though I hope it's mine)

Summary: In which Team Seven is actually competent. Naruto isn't some annoying dead last, Sakura isn't a devoted fangirl, and Sasuke is just not that into vengeance. And they're friends, shockingly.

...

Kakashi was, in a way, a very picky person. Not in the daily life kind of things of course, but in a _the-Hokage-decided-that-I-have-to-teach-some-brats-my-moves_ kind of things.

A few years ago, the Sandaime assigned Kakashi as a Jounin sensei, which of course ended up with Kakashi accepted despairingly. As expected, it did not work very well. He failed every team that had been assigned to him. Epically, he may add.

But it was okay, because Kakashi was a high-standard teacher, so he wanted a high-standard team as well, a team that could fulfill his goddamn easy high-standard that apparently lacking in these days genins.

He just wanted _teamwork_, for Heaven's sake, and if he didn't find that, well, he just couldn't be bothered.

So he just sat in front of the academy, crossed-legged on a branch while reading his book and waiting for _hours _just to annoy his genin-hopefuls team by showing up late. He knew for a fact that this team consisted of Minato-sensei's son, Obito's cousin, and some civilian girl with pink hair.

Why pink? Kakashi wouldn't want to know.

But just to think of his old team made Kakashi's heart leaped with pain and guilt, not to mention they made the _have-to-pass _list, Hokage's version. Konoha couldn't lose the potential great shinobi of the Last Uchiha or that of the Yondaime's son, he supposed.

He couldn't fail them. But well, if they lacked teamwork, any sense would be thrown out of the window. The Hokage probably just take them off his hair, and he couldn't be more grateful for that.

Kakashi looked at his pocket watch, decided he was late enough and started to walk to the inside of the academy, not really aware of the shock that would come later with his genins.

...

A While Later…

"So, introduce yourself. I will start first as an example, my name is Hatake Kakashi, I have many hobbies, my likes and dislikes are none of your business, and I think you don't have to know what my dreams are. Now start with blondie over there." , Kakashi said behind the not-so-embarrassing porn book he was reading.

'_So the only thing we learned was his name?'_ Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke sweatdropped while refusing to fall into temptation to just smack their palm to their face.

"Alright! My name is Uzumaki Naruto, My hobbies are making tags, learning about seals, and training, I also like ramen very much, I dislike people who laughed at my dreams. My dreams is to become Hokage and protect my precious people, dattebayo!", Naruto said without so much hesitation.

"Interesting. Next, Uchiha." Kakashi said, he felt surprised at the revelation that Naruto was not as 'empty' as the teachers from academy said he was (with the exception of Iruka, of course, but that guy was just _too_ nice to everyone).

"My name's Uchiha Sasuke, I disliked many things, I like nothing, my hobbies are training and making sure Naruto is always annoyed. My dream is…..to find out the real reasons for some things that happened in my past." Sasuke said not a bit later after Naruto.

'_It's not quite what I expected. I don't see any vengeance tendency here. I guess the teachers' perspectives were overrated after all. I have to search later about this…..' _Kakashi's musing was interrupted by Sakura introduction.

"My name is Haruno Sakura, I like reading, I disliked to be left behind, my hobbies are learning about medical skill, I planned to be a skilled and useful medic-nin one day.", Sakura said with a smile.

All in all, it was far different from what Kakashi expected, the (now-useless) profile he received said that the seemed-like-dysfunctional team consisted of a dead last, a fangirl, and a vengeful genius. It didn't say anything about a seal-practitioner, a medic-nin, and a not so obsessive prodigy, thus, it confused Kakashi greatly.

Ah well, he just had to visit the academy teacher later…

...

It's my first try in writing a story, so I hope you're not disappointed if somehow the story isn't good enough :)

I hope you all like it

Some review would be nice, I promise it will be longer next time I update,.


	2. Logical Things To Do

Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns it (even though I hope it's mine)

Summary: In which Team Seven is actually competent. Naruto isn't some annoying dead last, Sakura isn't a devoted fan girl, and Sasuke is just not that into vengeance. And they're friends, shockingly.

…..

In the eyes of others, Team Seven was probably the usual type of would-be-disaster team. Their personality crashed terribly with each other. Fortunately, it was not exactly true.

Yes, they sometimes disagreed with each other, and mocking seemed to be the only thing they did at times. But they surprisingly worked so well with each other, especially while doing exactly what their new teacher forbade them to do.

Just the other day, their new teacher said to meet at the clearing at five in the morning and not to eat before the test (he said something about just three teams that could pass as genins, the others had to be sent back to the academy), so that was precisely what they were doing right now, eating and completely abandoning Kakashi's orders in Ichiraku's Ramen—Naruto's idea— two hours after the time they supposed to arrive at the clearing.

"Tell me again, why exactly are we here?" Sasuke asked to his bowl of ramen. He had been wondering why the hell he had followed Naruto and Sakura to have breakfast. Probably because he was outvoted at time, and because he didn't want to starved to death later at the test, though he didn't want to admit it and continued his swimming in the river of denial.

"Because it was kinda pointless if we just wait for him to show up there?" Naruto chose to answer him anyway, because the poor bowl of ramen couldn't exactly answer the question.

"And it isn't the best idea if we have to fight with empty stomach." Sakura pointed out.

"And after all that information we've got yesterday about Kakashi-sensei, you _have_ to agree that he won't show up for, what, 3 hours from now?", Naruto made a point there.

Yes, they did search for information about Kakashi-sensei (because it was the most logical thing to do after Kakashi's mysterious and not-so-informative introduction of himself), mainly just Sasuke and Sakura, not because Naruto was not participated—he did, he was the one who came up with the brilliant idea —but because the Last Uchiha and a sweet-looking girl apparently could get more sympathy and information out of people rather than Naruto himself.

They found many facts about him, mostly about Kakashi being a living legend, a perverted man, and that he could be extremely late. _Very_, _very_ late. So they didn't want to risk it.

It was proven right when they get to the clearing. No sign of Kakashi yet, and Sasuke wanted to bang his head to a tree, he almost did, if Naruto didn't restrain him. So much for putting his faith on Kakashi.

Kakashi shown up a while later, followed by a "You're late!" from Sakura and Naruto.

…

"Now, now, I have two bells, and you have to get it from me to pass the test. You have time until lunch." Kakashi said cheerily.

There were three reactions to this statement.

"But there are just two bells! There are three of us! There's something amiss here!" Sakura started to protest (and accuse) Kakashi.

"Are you trying to pit us against each other or something?" Naruto asked with his normal volume of voice (which was the interpretation of screaming loudly for other people).

"Hn", considering this coming from Sasuke, this was counted as something, so Naruto and Sakura took that as a backing from him.

Kakashi sweatdropped at the rightness of Naruto's accusation. He didn't realize he was right, mind you, but that made it all the more ridiculous.

"That is _kinda_ the point. There will be just two people that can be passed as genins, the other one will be send back to the academy with the other teams who failed.", Kakashi tried to explain to the three.

"But that's absurd! Genin team is always a three-man-cell team! I'd know, just yesterday I saw a genin team with fuzzy eyebrows, buns girl, and white-eyes androgynous guy as the members!", Naruto shot back.

"You've met Gai's 'most youthful' team?" asked Kakashi with surprise, and then shuddered while remembering Gai's loud proclamation about his 'most youthful' team.

"Who?" was the decidedly wise answer from Naruto.

"Never mind. Now, as I told you before, the task is getting these two bells from me, but you will not be able to get the _bells_ if you are not trying to _kill Me.__", _Kakashi told them with a smile and pause for the dramatic effect. "The one who doesn't get the bells will be tied in that tree stump, while the teammates and I will eat in front of him, or her.", He continued, feeling a little put out by the non-existent concern from the three about the 'kill me' part.

The three already had breakfast, therefore didn't mind the lunch threat, and they knew that Kakashi was a very capable Jounin who wouldn't be injured from just the attacks of three genin-wannabes, so they just nodded.

"No questions? Good. Now, start!"

_…_

_Thanks for all of the reviews! It encouraged me to write more :)_

_The exploration of the characters will be in the next following chapters, (Why Naruto decided to apply his brain for something others than pranks, Sakura wants to be a medic-nin and is not a fangirl, or why Sasuke is not obsessed with vengeance, it's all logic, really.)_

_I promise longer chapter for the next update :D _


	3. The Bell Test

Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns it (even though I hope it's mine)

Summary: In which Team Seven is actually competent. Naruto isn't some annoying dead last, Sakura isn't a devoted fan girl, and Sasuke is just not that into vengeance. And they're friends, shockingly.

…

It started at the beginning of the test. The three was busy planning on hiding and making plans to get the bells, but then suddenly out-of-nowhere, Naruto came to a realization that he was right for his earlier assumption.

Turned out, it was a very simple and cunning concept of the test. Set two bells for three people and see if they could work well together or fought against each other. In point of fact, it was about teamwork, in spite of everything.

After all, genin team was really made out of three people, wasn't it? (He concluded, if the androgynous guy and buns girl could stand the fuzzy eyebrows' rather…'eccentric' choice of style, they _had_ to be his teammates).

It also helped his suspicion that Kakashi didn't answer him about the 'pitting-against-each-other' part, nor did he deny himself of the accusation at that time.

_So, Kakashi really set us against each other to test us, huh?_ He thought briskly while searching for his teammates' hiding spots.

Naruto kind of surprised that Sakura and Sasuke didn't see through the deception quicker than he did. But then again, Naruto had already changed from his old self four years earlier, he wasn't some prank-loving idiot anymore—Sasuke and Sakura made sure he actually put his brain into doing something useful and intelligent— so he supposed he shouldn't be so taken aback by it. He quickly put the thought away and continued searching for his friends.

Naruto wanted to curse Kakashi into oblivion right there and then, but it was just wasting their too-little-time to get the bells, so he settled on finding Sasuke and Sakura who were still hiding.

He could curse his teacher with Sasuke and Sakura later on anyway. After all, it was more fun if they cursed him together, God knows Naruto could do some additional cursing words from them.

…

A while later when they had re-grouped…..

"So, the plan is?"

"Get the bells."

"I know that, Naruto!"

Cue smacking sound.

"It hurts, Sakura-chan! Mou, you smacked hard." Naruto was pouting and rubbing his head.

"Serves you right. And Sasuke, a little help here with the plan would be nice, you know?" Sakura spoke.

"I'm _thinking_, Sakura, you should be grateful that I _am_ thinking, it's not easy to think with such a noisy teammate like Naruto around, after all." Sasuke countered.

"Thanks for the compliment, Sasuke. You know that if not for me, the ultimate secret of this test would not be revealed.", Naruto sniffed and crossed his arms.

"Sarcasm really isn't your forte.", Sasuke rolled his eyes.

"So…how about an ambush with traps?", Naruto suggested, already gotten over the insult from Sasuke.

"No time to set up the traps."

"Clones?"

"Jounin, Naruto. Clones don't stand a chance."

"Harem no Jutsu?" the blond said, turning weirder and weirder every time.

"It's not good boasting that you won over a fight from your teacher just because he's a pervert.", said the raven-haired youth with a perfectly straight face.

"God, you're so picky, Sasuke." , the blonde complained.

Before Sasuke could reply, Sakura came before them, wearing a-homicidal-maniac-in-PMS smile, fists ready to strike her teammates to shut them up. "Can you two shut up and focus? Or do I have to make you?" she continued smiling sweetly.

All things considered, the boys shut their mouth tightly.

"Why don't we just grab something of his and threaten to burn them anyway? I mean, his attention is on the bells, he probably guards it more than he does to other possessions of his." Sakura suggested logically, glaring at the boys who dared to try nitpicking at her idea.

"The...orange immoral book of his? He seems to be attached to it.", Sasuke said rationally.

After a few seconds of hearing that, Sakura abruptly made maniacal sounds that suspiciously sounded like evil-laugh. It made Naruto and Sasuke shivered and totally creeped out for life.

….

Kakashi was taking it easy. He wasn't really sure the three could get the bells at any rate. They probably were different from the profiles words on how they were supposed to be, but it didn't make them suddenly get very pleasant around each other, did it? At least that was what he believed.

He slowly searched through the forest around the clearing, wondering why none of them had attacked him yet. When suddenly he was being ambushed by many clones of Naruto, they attacked him from all sides, and Kakashi effectively blocking all of the punches and kicks, until some of them successfully grabbed him, locking him in place, so he substituted himself with a log instead.

While fending off so many Narutos, he could feel genjutsu being put on him. _Weak but efficient_, Kakashi couldn't help but notice. It probably would have fooled some lower level ninja, but unfortunately, it did not work on Kakashi. _It's_ _Sakura_, Kakashi thought, _Where's Sasuke then? They're good to maintain any teamwork at all at this kind of test._

The attacks from Naruto-clones that seemed endless—which were rising in numbers—continued for a few minutes, making him too busy blocking and punching to notice Sasuke who was hidden by hundreds of Narutos, directed his Goukakyu No Jutsu at him.

Kakashi finally noticed when the heat reached him, and moved back, watching the fire consumed the Naruto-clones in its reach, while wondering where the hell Sasuke had learned a C-rank jutsu like that. He, however, didn't expect all three of his soon-to-be students standing there completely with smug expression on their faces.

Kakashi froze, hands reaching for the bells, and relaxed when he felt it still hadn't move from its place. _So what are they smug about?_

And he froze again, suddenly regretting his decision to underestimate them.

There, five meters in front of him, Sakura held his lovely, precious book by the hand, smiling evilly at him.

"Kakashi-sensei."

"Yes, Sakura?" ,Kakashi answered dejectedly.

"I think we could do some agreement, don't you think?" ,asked Sakura while she continued to smile in her creepy own way.

"Yeah, Sensei, we don't want _anything_ to be damaged, do we?" ,Naruto supplied helpfully.

"I could perform the Goukakyu again if needed." ,Sasuke stated his not-so-subtle threat.

"It's not going to be needed if we can agree with each other, right sensei?" ,Naruto continued, smug grin etched into his face.

…..

Team Seven passed, of course, even if they didn't threaten Kakashi's lovely book, they still aced the test. They had good _teamwork_ after all, and Kakashi approved of good teamwork.

_I think I'm starting to like my cute little students after all….._

Although he was still interested about the friendship they had (Kakashi saw them celebrating their victory in Ichiraku's, and they seemed pretty chatty, so he concluded that at least they were friends) , he had yet to visit the academy about the curious behavior of his team, but that could wait after he spent his time reuniting with his precious little book…..

…..

Third chapter :)

I hope you all like it

The characterizations probably would be deepened and expanded in the following chapters :)

Some reviews would be nice :D


	4. C Rank Makes Us Very Happy

Disclaimer: Masashi Kishimoto owns it (even though I hope it's mine)

Summary: In which Team Seven is actually competent. Naruto isn't some annoying dead last, Sakura isn't a devoted fangirl, and Sasuke is just not that into vengeance. And they're friends, shockingly.

_Thought _

"Speech"

…

"Report, Hokage-sama. Team Seven had passed the test."

The old man with the pipe—known as The Third Hokage—nodded absently. "Thank you for the report, Kakashi. How was their performance on the test?", he asked calmly.

"Their performance was very good, Hokage-sama, better than I anticipated even.", Kakashi answered slowly.

The Hokage knitted his eyebrows. "So why the troubled face, Kakashi? Did something go wrong?", the Third questioned with concern.

To other people, Kakashi's face probably just looked like the usual boredom, but Sarutobi had known Kakashi for a very long time, so of course he detected the worry in his expression.

"Nothing, Hokage-sama, I was just over-thinking the situation." Kakashi smiled and pulled a bored face once again.

"If you say so.", the Hokage looked unconvinced but didn't press the problem.

After that, Kakashi excused himself and leave the Hokage tower, he decided to go straight to the academy.

… .

Iruka sat in his office in the academy that afternoon; he was organizing some papers for the preparation of the new coming terms. _New semester, new children to teach,_thought Iruka with a smile. He was the type that liked children, after all. Even if some of them could be quite a handful sometimes.

The thought of new students brought his mind to his former student, he wondered how well Naruto was doing now. During all these years, Iruka had developed some fondness for the boy, he was a nice boy despite the villagers' judgment of him. He hoped the blonde didn't cause too much trouble, although considering his boldness and knack for it, Iruka couldn't hope much anyway….

His musing was interrupted by knocks at the door. _Who would come to the academy when the terms haven't even started yet?_

Turned out, it was a white-haired jounin standing in front of the door. Iruka recognized this man; how could he not, the man was the infamous Copy-Nin Kakashi Hatake. He heard of the shinobi's reputation of course, and saw him from time to time in the village, but never talked or met him personally. He also knew that this was Naruto's Jounin instructor, and so he wondered what brought him here.

He let the man took a seat across him, and felt that even when the Copy-Nin slouched and acted like he was bored, he still radiated power and authority. Iruka just started to arrange the jumble thought to something more polite to start the conversation, when he was cut off by Kakashi.

"Umino Iruka, former teacher of Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura?" ,Kakashi asked

"I am. May I ask you what happened to them that cause you to come here?" ,Iruka answered with concern.

The real question he wanted to ask though, was _'Does Naruto cause you much trouble?'_ ,but seeing the man just asked him about Sasuke and Sakura too, he realized that couldn't be the cause of the visit. _Or perhaps Naruto just dragged Sasuke and Sakura into troubles with him_, Iruka face-palmed in his mind. _Please don't tell me the man come here to submit them back to the academy._

"Nothing happened to them of course. But I wanted to ask you a few questions about them, though. Do you mind?", Kakashi rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, erasing all of Iruka's concern over Naruto getting in any trouble.

"No, not at all.", Iruka answered and smiled.

"What were they like back in academy?" Kakashi asked from his not-so-prepared question-list. The question-list was in his mind of course, because it was not-so-prepared.

Iruka had a half-mind to question why the jounin wanted the information, but restrained himself as he realized it wasn't his business to begin with.

"I assume you don't want the physical descriptions?" He paused here—a line of thought passed him—then continued, "Or do you? You have met them, right?" ,Iruka asked, his eyes narrowing with some apprehension.

Giving the Copy-nin's infamous reputation for his tardiness (thus giving Iruka some insight that the white-haired man could be very ruthless when it came to people who were waiting for him), it was a possibility—very small, but a possibility nonetheless—that he hadn't yet to meet his student and wanted information just because he couldn't find them.

"Of course I have met them! I am NOT that irresponsible." Kakashi said indignantly, expression scandalized.

It was hard to believe that he was not that irresponsible, mind you, but Iruka just laughed sheepishly and apologized.

"Ahahah, sorry, I didn't mean to accuse you of anything, really, but apparently the rumors and gossips just getting into me."

"Yes, I know. It's okay. It's hard to be someone so...hip, indeed, the gossips and rumors out there are just trying to bring you down every time." Kakashi sighed, fully aware that the gossips about him were actually true. Iruka just sweatdropped at the proclamation. Now back at the topic at hand.

"Ah yes, now about your students' data. Sasuke, he's the last Uchiha, as you know. His taijutsu is advan—" Iruka just started his explanation when he was suddenly cut off.

"I already read that from the profiles that were given to me—even if it's not perfectly accurate. What I want to know is their personality at the time they were your students. Because in my test yesterday, they did surprisingly well in teamwork among other things, clearly contradicts half of the things written down on the profiles.", Kakashi explained.

"I'm not sure I should be surprised. Naruto and Sasuke weren't the best buddies in the world, but I reckon that they at least tolerated each other. It could even be called friendship, considering a few times Sasuke helped Naruto in some practices. As for Sakura, I think I remembered some friendly interactions between her and the two boys, and I'm pretty sure she already grew up from her fan girl state…..And maybe they build their friendship outside of the academy, who knows?", Iruka stated.

"So, it's not so surprising for you that Naruto and Sasuke didn't tear each other throat out with Sakura cheering for Sasuke?", Kakashi pressed.

"No, I think they can work well by default. Although their profiles says otherwise, but you obviously know that the teachers mostly wrote it by general, and some people have rather…biased view of one of your students.", Iruka smiled sadly, particularly at the unfairness about others' treatment of Naruto.

It was silent for a few seconds until Kakashi broke it.

"Of course."

….

SkipSkipSkipSkip

…

After countless D-Rank missions that they had to endure, from babysitting, shopping, gardening and finding lost pets (Team Seven had been mentally scarred from one mission of finding the daimyo's wife's lost pet, something about the demon cat from hell just downright scary), they certainly felt very depressed and frustrated—though the 'depressed' part was just Naruto in one of his overly-dramatic moods.

So, when they arrived in the Hokage's office after a D-rank mission to take _another_, they decided to put a stop on it. More like, Naruto decided to put a stop on it, because Sasuke was too dignified to protest and Sakura was just too polite

"So, Team Seven, your next mission is to babysit the—", The Hokage began just to be interrupted.

"No! No. I refuse to do anymore of this, Ojii-chan! Give us something good!" Naruto complained loudly without thinking beforehand.

In result, Sakura—whose right eye twitched—wondered if those long hours Sasuke and she spent for giving Naruto those lessons in tact had just been a waste after all. Sasuke—who was secretly rooting for Naruto— just preferred to be his stoic usual self. Kakashi just continued to look bored.

Sakura had just tried to give Naruto one of her 'I-know-you're-frustrated-but-please-don't-get-us-killed-too-quickly-in-life' speeches, but was interrupted by an amused chuckle.

"Naruto, there are many ranks of mission for many ranks of shinobi, you should understand that.", the old man said with an amused smile.

"I know, I know, Sakura and Sasuke recited that for like, five times a day, but I thought C-rank applied to genins too." ,Naruto replied impatiently.

"We did _so_ not recite that five times a day.", Sakura said to Naruto. "Probably four, but not five.", she added as an afterthought.

She turned to the Hokage and asked, "With all due respect Hokage–sama, but isn't what Naruto said true?"

"Certainly, Sakura. So I guess I have no choice then.", he sighed. "An escort mission to wave, C-rank. Kakashi, as the instructor, do you accept this mission?"

"As their instructor, I accept the mission for Team Seven, Hokage-sama.", Kakashi answered. And then he turned his lone eye to his students, and said "Are you happy now?"

Surprisingly, it was the ever-silent Sasuke who spoke, "C-rank makes your cute little students all happy and full of fluff."

Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura, and even the Hokage stared at him.

Silence.

"…...I was just paraphrasing Naruto from his 'why-should-we-get-higher-rank-missions' speech…...", Sasuke finally said.

Sakura and Kakashi both heaved a sigh.

"Don't paraphrase something so cheery again, Sasuke, it almost gave me heart attack." Naruto told him seriously.

"Hn, whatever."

"Anyway, who will need to be guarded by our awesome team, Jii-chan?", Naruto once again turned toward the Hokage.

The Hokage chuckled at that and ordered a chunnin to call the person they will be guarding. This person turned out to be an old man with glasses and very-much-drunk-by-the-way-he-was-acting attitude, named Tazuna. After much assurance, finally the man accepted that the team would be capable of protecting him.

"Remember that we'll meet at seven o'clock tomorrow by the gates. Don't be late, my cute little students." Kakashi said with an eye-smile once they were out of The Hokage's tower. Then he promptly disappeared and leaving many leafs in his wake.

"The advice sure is absurd coming from him…..."

….

Thank you for all who reviewed last chapters :D

Note for the **story** : Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura of course are close friends. I put Iruka there just for other's point of view of their relationship. They built their relationship mostly outside the academy for some reason (it will be explored later in the story), so some people in the story was probably shocked because of their 'sudden' friendship.

Author's note: I'm very sorry for the lateness; I was in the hospital because of some infection in my stomach so I couldn't write anything, I hope I make it up for you though with this chapter :)

Thanks everyone who reviewed and the last chapters!

Now, some review would be nice :)


	5. A Logical Plan Formulates Itself

Disclaimer : The one and only Masashi Kishimoto.

This time no summary attached, cause you all can look up there.

…..

Sakura suddenly stopped and stared at her surroundings.

Sasuke and Naruto also stopped and stared at her.

Kakashi, who assumed that his students' suddenly strange behavior is not an uncommon occurrence, continued on his merry way, hoping faintly that his students would eventually follow him. It was a futile hope.

The client, Tazuna, was torn between following Kakashi without a word, and following Kakashi then told him that leaving his three students behind was not a sign of a good teacher.

Fortunately for Tazuna's dilemma, the Copy-nin eventually stopped, already realizing that this time, he was the one who had to succumb to their wants. The brats.

Sakura finally said, "Hey Naruto, Sasuke, is it just me, or something is seriously wrong in this picture?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, "It's the puddle, obviously."

"Why would the puddle bother you, Sakura?" Naruto said with raised eyebrow, confused.

"I don't know, dobe. Maybe because it hasn't rained over a week?" answered the raven-haired.

"Oh, I see!" Naruto said excitedly. Then as an afterthought, "And shut up, teme! I've got more important things to do than to pay attention to simple thing as in the weather, like making exploding tags, eating ramen, learning about cool jutsu, eating ramen, do some chakra control exercise cause mine sucks, eating ramen, and many more!"

Before the quarrel continued though, Sakura interrupted. "Oh, stop the bickering, you two."

Then, she decided to throw subtlety out of the window and bluntly asked, "Hey, Kakashi-sensei, do you think that this is a trap set up by some mist ninja or what?"

Turned out, Sakura had the talent to be a psychic. Or maybe the obvious trap is just a really lame one that everyone could guess it right away. Because the second she said that, two black-clad ninjas sprung up from the puddle, wearing some ridiculous gas masks, claws and what looks like chains dangling from their arms. They automatically leaped at Kakashi, using their chains to grab a hold of him.

"Ah, I'm sure I will be happy to answer your question if were not busy getting torn apart in half here, Sakura. But I think you already have your answer. What's with the two strange ninjas who now are attempting to kill me and all that." Kakashi said with an eye-smile when his body was being split apart by the unknown ninjas.

Tazuna looked like he wanted to cry as his protector was getting killed by two creepy ninjas. God, how could he get home safely now?

While the client was obviously panicking, the three genins looked calm, as though their sensei wasn't just getting chopped off in front of them.

"Meh, kawarimi.", the pinkette said, looking rather irked by her sensei's stunt.

Sasuke just rolled his eyes –Sakura swore that someday, his eyes were going to stuck that way forever– muttering about how their sensei underestimated them too much, and grunting, "Do we really look like some idiots?"

Naruto, meanwhile, did not particularly interested in his sensei's little trick, rather he observed the two missing-nin's choice of clothes.

"You know, I get it that the claws and chains and gas masks are supposed to look scary as well as intimidating, but given their previous stupid plan of hiding their presence from their enemy – "

"Which you _didn't_ notice."

"– it suddenly looks ridiculously funny. It's like they think their frightening choice of clothes makes up for their lack of brilliant mind or something like that.", Naruto continued like Sasuke hadn't said anything.

"Well, at least they had some sense to dress scarily and hiding their idiocy. YOU don't have any, that's why you wear that danger-attracting thing you call clothes. I figured that you're the most suicidal person I've ever met." Sasuke added his two-cent.

"Hey! Kiba is more suicidal than me! He sprouted some absurd match-ups about probably every shinobis, said something about soul mates, unrequited love and God-knows-what-else in front of the shinobis themselves. Come to think of it, he's really lucky that excessive murder has already been banned from the village."

"You both deserved each other. I'm going to tell him to match himself up with you, so you both can–"

"Goddammit, boys! Fight the enemies, not each other!" the suddenly-feeling-homicidal-at-her-teammates Sakura said.

"Yes, ma'am!"

Not much to be said, they sprung into action, and found out that Naruto's theory was actually very valid. It's not hard to take them down despite the scary clothes, just a few punches and kicks.

Kakashi showed up sometime later claiming that they did a good job at protecting the client, and answered Sasuke's earlier question with "Yes, actually, you three look like some idiots." –which made Sakura stepped on his foot– "But that clearly isn't true, right?" –which made the three dropped the glares the sent to the man's direction.

Then he noticed that his blonde student got a poisonous cut in his hand, and asked them to go back to Konoha to treat the wound so the poison wouldn't spread.

Naruto wouldn't have any of it and cut it deeper so the poison would flow out with the blood.

"Seriously, I'm okay. The wound would close itself in no time! See?" he showed them the almost-closed wound.

Scared that Sakura and Sasuke would question Naruto, start getting suspicious about it and then treat him negatively because they were jealous or something like that, Kakashi moved to interfere.

His effort was rather vain really. Sasuke had already beaten him into it.

"Although I admit that I'm rather jealous because you will never go into hospitals, this is surprisingly good news. It could be an asset, Naruto. And it could cover your idiocy better than your clothes ever could."

"Hey! I resent that! But how so that it's an asset?"

"I don't care if you resent that with your whole heart. And as for the asset thing, you know, someday guys beat us up, suddenly the wounds on you closed off and they freak out, then we could be known as the unbeatable team or something, even technically you're the only one who could heal magically like that. Of course I'm speaking hypothetically, because we'll never get beaten by anyone."

Kakashi didn't expect that one, really. It befuddled him how they went from bickering like rivals at a moment to speaking civilly like friends the next one. Hmm, curious, curious friendship.

And now, time to hear his female student's reaction.

"Wow, Naruto, you have a superpower!"

Kakashi slapped his hand to his forehead.

…..

"Run! Take the client and run away! You have no chance of beating him!" Kakashi yelled through the water prison created by Zabuza. "As long as he is keeping me trapped in this prison, he can't move. The water clone cannot go very far from his real body. So just run away, now!"

"And leave you there? No way! And guys, I have a plan, which formulates itself when Kakashi did the 'run away!' monologue thing." proclaimed Naruto.

"I'm serious, guys! Just what are you doing?" he asked in alarm.

"They are arrogant, Kakashi. Your little brats. But do they stand a chance?" Zabuza said, amused.

They take no care whatsoever and huddled closer together, spoke in hushed voices. After a few minutes, finally they faced Zabuza. Their hands on their backs,

"Kakashi said that you cannot move while you hold the prison." spoke Naruto.

"So we formulate a brilliant idea." Sakura continued.

"Simply put, we use the most logical thing to do at this time. So hah, be prepared to be defeated by three arrogant brats!" Sasuke ended with a mocking tune.

And they throw something they had been hiding with their hands at Zabuza. The missing-nin tensed up, all set for some impressive something, and ended up staring at the 'something' on the ground. 'Something' being things like little rocks, each wrapped up in a white piece of paper. They scattered around him and his clone.

Zabuza chuckled, "Arrogant brats. What did you expect? For me to be distracted by the rocks and released the prison? Foolish you. Enough of this little game, you are not worthy of being called a ninja. I'm gonna finish my job now."

The clone started to move to attack them, and Naruto creepily smiled.

BOOM.

The rocks exploded.

"That was my exploding tags. With a rock. Cool right? Doesn't look like exploding tags at all." A smug Naruto said.

Then from the smoke Kakashi came out, coughing a few times, and spoke, "Good plan, guys. But pray tell, how did you come up with that? All I could think at that time is to fight him to release the prison. I'll admit, you're very creative."

"Well, everyone would move if there was explosion in front of them, wouldn't they? It's the only logical thing to do without risking our lives, sensei."

….

AN : Guys, I'm sorry it took a long time to update, but school has started. Somehow, I decided to enrolled in the science program (I still don't know why I decided that), and believe me, the teachers there give homework like candies. I know it's a lame excuse, but it's true. However, I hope I can update this again soon enough. I wish you like this chapter :)

I encourage and welcome you to give your suggestion for this story!


End file.
